Muteness
by QuiteQuiet
Summary: Blake and Weiss leave a lot unsaid.


_**Author's Note: Hey everyone, it's back to the black and white with this quick Monochrome one-shot.**_

 _ **This is a birthday present for a Monochrome shipper, but on a personal level I'm not proud of it. I'm not sure how I handled the characterization or relationships between the characters, and the tiebacks between each vignette are shaky at best. Also, it's kind of miserable. But it doesn't stay that way.**_

 _ **UPDATE 7/31: You know you messed up somewhere when you're making so many edits not even an hour after posting. There was some good input made by ODST110, which was part of the focus in my revision. For the rest, I tried to make it clearer so it's not a complete minimalistic mess.**_

* * *

On the first day, Blake paces in their dorm room, up and down and around the perimeter. She goes to the window and stares outside to the blanket of snow covering the campus. It's quite deep this year. Blake blinks and looks at her reflection. The bouquet in the black vase is reflected on one of the bookshelves, over her shoulder. She's beginning to understand her teammate's concerns. It was too upfront for something just starting, Yang had told her. Coco waited for a while before giving flowers to Velvet. It's too out there even for someone who likes the recognition.

Blake didn't think about that. All she thought of as she passed by the flower kiosk in the supermarket was how the assortment of lilies and carnations looked so pretty among the softer-colored callas and peonies. The florist stopped snipping the stray pieces on the stems, and Blake's senses were filled the sickly sweet scent of chlorophyll. Leaves littered the counter where the bouquet was being cut. Blake looked up, no longer distracted.

"It's not cheap during the winter, but they do look nice," the florist had said, and there went a chunk of Blake's savings.

Blake recalls this from the window while watching two people walk down the campus square. She tries to imagine the crunching sounds under their feet but oddly can only see them moving quietly, snow lifting with their boots and falling back to the ground as they make their way toward their destination. Blake turns to the flowers, contemplating.

The door opens. Weiss walks in, bundled to almost twice her size under expensive winter attire. Her face is red from trekking this way through the cold. She pulls down the front of her scarf and begins to unwind it, her breaths quieting until Blake can no longer hear them. The last few inches of cashmere slide off Weiss and she flips the scarf over her shoulder. She's taking off her gloves when she sees Blake.

"Oh," she says, to a very brief pause. "I thought you were in the library," Weiss continues. "You know, like practically every day."

Once removed, she shifts her pair of blue suede gloves shifts to one hand. "I have to get a movie," she says, moving distractedly toward one of the bookshelves. She crouches, running her hand over the line of DVDs. "JNPR wants to see it. Ruby insisted it's a fun movie. Probably means it's juvenile, but it can't be any dumber than having a snowball fight for _three hours_. That's what they were doing," she explains. Her finger lands on the right case and she takes it out. "Juvenile," she concludes as she stands back up.

She's about to leave again when she spots the vase. "That's really pretty," she says, coming closer to inspect it. Blake watches her lean into the sprigs of hyacinth. Weiss reaches another finger out and gently touches one.

"Did you bring this in, Blake?" she asks, facing the Faunus, and Blake feels suddenly petrified. "It's just a question," Weiss says to her glassy expression. "It looks pretty, is all, and I thought I'd tell you that. It brings, I don't know, something new after all this dreadful snow."

Blake senses her arms have gone limp. She shrugs them, awkwardly, and doesn't quite feel they're connected to her body.

A tiny sliver of Weiss's forehead creases as she looks another time at Blake. "I'm going," she says, placing her scarf and gloves on the bookshelf. "The others are waiting for the movie." She turns out the door but, halfway through, lingers another few seconds on the bouquet.

Blake lets Yang give it to Pyrrha.

* * *

Snow falls again that night, muffling the world in a blanket of silence.

* * *

On the second day, Weiss fidgets while she and Velvet play chess.

"I don't get it," she says in the empty cafeteria. She moves her bishop, calculating Velvet's next few possible counters. "Am I reading into it? Am I doing something wrong? No, it's not me. It's Blake being, well. Blake."

"She doesn't say much, does she?" Velvet states. Weiss watches with her chin on the table as the other girl moves a piece the way Weiss predicted. "I think it would be easy to misinterpret what she might be thinking."

Weiss knocks over the incoming knight to protect her queen. "What if it's all for nothing?" she says. She feels like a kid; Velvet has grown used to hearing her worry.

"You could always ask her," Velvet says, wasting no time in making her next move.

Weiss shifts her white knight in defense, keeping an eye on the rook. "And if it's no? I could never look her in the face again."

"Sure you could."

"I'm her teammate. And a _Schnee_. She still sounded mad when I admitted my father's company is horrible toward the Faunus."

She moves her eyes to watch Velvet slide another piece closer to victory. She waits on her turn to strategize, more soundlessly than usual.

"Weiss," Velvet says a minute later.

Weiss brings her hands together and rises into a sit. "Yes?"

"You're going against your father's way of running the company."

"Yes," says Weiss.

"And Blake is no longer part of the White Fang."

Weiss winces. "Yes." She regrets letting it slip.

"Then maybe it's not so awkward that you're teammates."

Weiss frowns at her, then looks back down to the board. Velvet's side is glaringly open for a loss.

"You're not letting me win, are you?" she says, knocking over Velvet's knight.

Velvet knocks hers, with a swift, resounding crack from the bottom of a rook. "No," she says, transporting the knight to her side of the table. "Check."

* * *

Blake is sitting in a closet next to a long-forgotten mop and bucket, notebook on her thighs as she tries to write a poem. Her shoulders are sore from leaning against the wall for so long. She pushes off and rolls them backwards, hearing a few cricks as she pops her neck. Her legs unfold almost to the other end of the wall. She realizes the tightness is depressing. Even with her night vision the closet looks unusually dim. Blake looks back down to the pages of her black notebook, trying to calculate the best arrangement of words.

A minute later she flips the book shut. "I suck at this," she says, and though this nook of the campus is rarely explored, she spends a long time listening for a clear coast so she can leave unnoticed. Her face is in her hands.

* * *

They cross each other that night in a hallway, and are too preoccupied to notice. They barely register the sound of different footsteps until they're right in each other's faces. They look up, startled, and there are a few seconds of silence.

"Oh," said Weiss.

"Well," says Blake.

They back up a step, start again, and are still in the other's path. Weiss stops abruptly, head tilted down as her eyes flick uncertainly to Blake. Blake grunts and shuffles around her. Weiss turns to watch, spinning like a thread unraveling. Blake shrugs, quickly, before saying, "Well."

"Where—?" says Weiss.

"Cafeteria."

"Oh," says Weiss.

"Yeah," says Blake.

"Well."

The words loom between them until Blake turns and walks stiffly down the hall. Their voices follow her, lingering miserably long after their exchange is over.

* * *

On the third day, Weiss yells at a stranger for staring at her too long. She forgets about only having a scarf to protect her from the cold. The energy is emanating off her in waves, turning all her pain into anger. She storms out of the first-year floor with palpable rage—"Don't touch me!" she says five feet away to another student she's never met, "Don't you know who I _am_?" and barrels down the stairwell. People who see her jump out of the way. Weiss hits the ground floor and heads straight for the front doors, which she bursts open to meet a tremendously cold gust of wind. It had snowed again, covering the ground and trees in layers of untouched white powder.

Weiss has made too dramatic an exit to turn back. She lets go of the double doorframes and heads into the snow without a hat or gloves. In her dizziness, she'd put on heels instead of boots. Her skirt is thin and not equipped for the cold. Weiss starts freezing seconds into her walk, snow seeping into her wool stockings. It clings to her like claws and shoots up her legs. Weiss locks up, trembling, and screams through her teeth in exasperation. She stomps as fast as she can down the courtyard and halfway through turns randomly to the left. She shoves her hands under her arms to keep them from getting number.

Her tracks circle to the back end of the dorm, where other people had already been. The snow was shorn under their boots, dashed and muddied into careless piles that look as ugly as Weiss feels. Sticks of all sizes are scattered around a lopsided, lumpy snowman, none good enough arms for these unknown students' abominable creation. "Stupid morons," Weiss says, hating the snowman. She kicks it, feeling the satisfaction of watching its shapeless waist crumble. However, its coldness delivers a shock that wakes Weiss fully to her senses. Her foot is stuck in the snowman. She twists it, her arms waving wildly for balance, before her heel slips and she falls comically backwards into the snow.

There is a tiny crater in the snowman where she'd kicked it. Its body is no longer caving in. Weiss punches it again, feebly, and doesn't care how little she destroys. She folds her legs and clasps her hands around them, curling into herself for protection against the cold. The crispness of the air makes her notice a dull ache in the right side of her head. She breathes in and the frost bites her stuffy nostrils. She starts to rock, forgetting where she is. She buries her head in her stockings and cries.

* * *

On the fourth day, Blake sits at a deserted café with Coco. Coco is repairing a hole in one of her scarves. There's a plastic threading kit in the purse lying under her barstool. As Coco's needle slips through the fabric to sew the hole closed, Blake picks up her mug from the counter and takes another sip of coffee. She tried it black for the first time, to try clearing her mind. It's bitter and nauseating. Blake puts the mug back on the counter, gasping. Her other hand clings to the bottom of her barstool.

"If you don't like it then order some tea," says Coco. She has not taken her eyes off the scarf.

"I'm saving my lien," says Blake.

"For what?"

"I'm just saving it."

Coco continues pushing the needle through her scarf. Blake watches it dip and surface, gradually filling the hole. Each movement is accompanied by the tiniest sound of thread being woven together.

"You and Velvet," says Blake.

"Yeah?"

"They call it an item."

"One way to put it."

The hole is almost completely gone. The silver bell on the café door chimes as somebody else walks in. She hobbles toward the nearest table, laden down by a puffy red coat. Blake looks over. Coco doesn't. She keeps stitching up the scarf.

"You and Velvet," says Blake.

"Me and Velvet."

"How?"

Coco shrugs. "I just said something."

The hole is gone. Coco plucks the needle out of the scarf, pinching the thread at its base to keep from causing more damage. She swings her leg to catch the purse's straps over her foot. She brings it up, opens it, and drops the needle into the plastic kit. She places the purse back on the floor and turns to Blake.

Blake feels antsy, like something is traveling along her skin. "I need to go," she says, and slides off the barstool with a final wave. She reaches the door when the red-coated patron speaks.

"Want to celebrate the holidays from my winter kiosk?"

* * *

When she gets back, Blake sees Weiss trudging along the courtyard, her white and disconsolate head facing the ground. Weiss is not even making complete steps. She's slogging her feet along, letting the snow pile onto her boots. In a few seconds she might look up and see Blake in the distance. Blake walks forward to meet her. She's holding an item in front of her chest. She'd bought it with the last of her lien.

Weiss is still coming forward. She still has not seen Blake. Blake feels silly. But maybe it's right.

She picks up speed, staying right in Weiss's path. Weiss hears the footsteps and looks up. Blake's eyebrows dance with worry, a little stuffed penguin in her hands.

Weiss says nothing. She looks Blake in the face, her mouth opening and closing.

Blake starts to stammer. "Penguin," she says, holding it out. "For you. Black and white. Us. Sort of."

The penguin lies softly in her open palms, its blue marble eyes facing the sky. Weiss has been stunned speechless. She stares at the penguin, and then, hesitantly, takes it from Blake. She looks at the animal, moving it slowly to inspect every inch. A few seconds later she settles around its middle, lowers it. Again, she looks at Blake.

Blake twists her tone into a question. "Maybe see a movie sometime?"

Weiss moves the penguin to one hand. She looks very solemnly at Blake. She nods.

"Yes."

She faces the ground, turns around. Blake joins in beside her. The snow crunches under their feet as they return to the dorm.


End file.
